The Vampire Diaries: "Bad Moon Rising" Review

Family secrets are exposed, some more dramatically than others.

The werewolves are here, finally! In the least shocking development of The Vampire Diaries history, Tyler finds out that Uncle Mason is a werewolf. And we, like Damon, have seen enough movies to know that this is not good news for the vampires in town.

The "revelation" may not be surprising to the audience, but it's a relief that it is finally out there; hopefully this plotline will move forward a bit quicker now. The fact that werewolf bites are deadly to vampires adds some danger for our town vampires, turning the tables on them as they become the prey. Watching Uncle Mason painfully writhe on the ground as he begins his transformation, it is clear that while werewolves are hazardous to a vampire's health, as usual it is the werewolf who gets the raw end of the deal. Vampires are sexy, but werewolves are slobbery, and have a tendency to wake up naked in awkward places, covered in dirt.

The main couple is mixed and matched this week as Elena and Damon head off on a research trip, and Stefan stays behind to deal with Caroline. Elena and Damon are always interesting to watch, whether they are friends or not, but it is Stefan and Caroline who steal the show this week. They have a surprisingly easygoing and fun chemistry between them and I would love to see more of them together. Stefan, with his tendency toward moodiness, is more cheerful and amused with Caroline than he has been in the entirety of the show to this point. It's nice to see Paul Wesley smile every once in a while. And Candice Accola continues to shine as new vampire Caroline. While it is amusing to watch Caroline's human nature exaggerated as a vampire in all of its insecure and whiny glory, I had to roll my eyes at Stefan's explanation of that process to her. I'm pretty sure he implied that his general awesomeness as a human was magnified into extreme awesomeness when he became a vampire.

There are a couple bothersome points in this storyline, the most problematic being how much freedom Stefan gives the newborn vampire Caroline. She has already killed someone; why does he wait until after she has attacked Matt to give him the vervain that will protect him? It is curiously similar to the way he and Elena did nothing to stop Damon's from manipulating and using Caroline in the first season.

Bonnie is another frustrating part of this part of the story. Granted, she has the most thankless part to play, being the one human in town who knows who the vampires are and is not accepting of it. Her feelings toward them are understandable, but having Bonnie appear in the story mainly to give moral lectures to the other characters is making her less likable as well as painfully humorless. She isn't wrong in her opinions, but what makes this particular situation harder to overlook is that Caroline is in this predicament at least partially because of Bonnie. She overruled Elena and allowed Damon to give the hospitalized Caroline his blood so she would heal. Bonnie did not know that Caroline would be killed and subsequently become a vampire. But she was still a part of the process, something she appears to have forgotten.

Elena and Tyler both spend much of the episode investigating family secrets, but while Tyler's storyline had some action with the werewolf attack, Elena is mainly tied up in exposition on the history of vampires and werewolves. Making this a bit easier to get through is the welcome return of Matt Davis as Alaric. Hopefully we will have more chances in the future to see Alaric and Damon's odd couple partnership in action since they are so entertaining when forced to work together. This time though, the majority of the road trip is focused on Damon's unsuccessful quest to win back Elena's friendship. It is not a relationship that can be rebuilt quickly, nor should it be, considering Damon's behavior. But it will certainly be as interesting over the course of the season to watch Damon chip away at the wall of Elena's hatred as it was to watch their friendship develop last year.